Khalil Marrar The Arab Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2009)

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.While the immediate behind-the-scenes reaction from AIPACis not known since it exists in private memoranda, the positions taken by thepro-Israel lobby in its public statements were well documented, as conveyedby its influential biweekly Capitol Hill publication, the Near East Report(NER).Eluding the two-state solutionMembers of Congress and AIPAC representatives were trying to blunt theeffects of the roadmap after Powell s speech.As President Bush formallypresented the Israelis and Palestinians with details of his plan, the NERfeatured a letter meant to hinder action on the two-state solution.Leaders of the House and Senate are circulating a letter to PresidentBush saying any roadmap for Israeli Palestinian talks should be basedon the guiding principles he outlined in a speech last June 24.Theseprinciples include the establishment of a new Palestinian leadershipthat is transparent, accountable, free from the taint of terrorism ; pro-gress based on benchmarks of real performance ; and negotiationsonly between the parties themselves and the United States in orderfor progress to be lasting. 118After passing through Congress, that letter was sent to President Bush.Itwas intended to place a disproportionate weight of peace on the Palestiniansand made no mention of Israel s occupation in violation of the Oslo agree-ment and international law or the violence that the IDF committed againstthe Palestinians.In short, the letter sought to ensure that the administrationcould not move on Middle East peace evenhandedly.AIPAC and its allies inCongress recounted everything that the Palestinians were doing wrong, butfailed to mention how the administration itself perceived the Israeli occupa-tion as a foundational obstacle to peace in the region.And since Congresscontrolled the purse, which would finance President Bush s grandiose vision78 Effects of the pro-Israel lobbyfor peace, the administration had to observe the letter s demands in order topreserve political capital with legislators and the pro-Israel lobby that soughtto sway them.Nevertheless, in accordance with calls for new leadership, the Palestiniansappointed a new figure to head the PA.Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazin)became prime minister and Arafat took a backseat after years of isolation byIsrael and the United States.This move, however, did not result in the UStaking steps to compel Israel to ease its occupation of the Palestinian popu-lation in the West Bank and Gaza.Weeks after Abu Mazin s appointment,AIPAC commentators began to condemn the new Palestinian government,arguing that it was moving in the opposite direction on dismantling ter-rorist organizations.119 Ignored was the fact that years of Israeli militarystrikes against the PA s security system meant that no new government wouldhave been able to halt violence from renegade factions.Furthermore, therewas no recognition of the relationship between occupation and terrorism.120As far as AIPAC was concerned, the Jewish state could flaunt internationalconventions until the Palestinians performed the nearly impossible task ofquelling all resistance to an ongoing occupation without the means to do so.The American policymaking elite pretty much adopted the same position.Early calls for Israel to end its occupation were perceived at best as rhetoricto make it seem as if the US was engaged in constructive action on theIsraeli Palestinian conflict, and at worst, as a veneer for more sinister inten-tions in the region.US policy seemed to take the blame off the Jewish statewhile the entire world viewed its occupation as the catalyst for violence.Through all of this, AIPAC was proud to mention that the Americanadministration was calling on Prime Minister Abu Mazin to take concretesteps to stop the violence with no commensurate outline for Israel to end itsoccupation.121Along with the Bush administration s deeds to squeeze the Palestinianleadership, AIPAC was lobbying Congress to pass new laws regarding theconditions under which a Palestinian state would be recognized.In May2003, the NER reported,the House International Relations Committee approved legislationdeclaring that a Palestinian state should not be recognized by theUnited States until the Palestinians elect new leaders, dismantle theterrorist infrastructure and reform their society as President Bush calledfor in his June 24, 2002, speech on the Middle East.The provision wasincluded in the fiscal year 2004 5 Foreign Relations Authorization bill,which also authorizes U.S.aid to Israel.122So, in addition to its support of Israel, Congress was now working to makeopposition to a Palestinian state the law of the land.AIPAC s demands on abesieged population set up unattainable standards.Hence, the two-statesolution, as envisioned by the Bush administration, was in danger ofEffects of the pro-Israel lobby 79becoming a pipedream.The Palestinians were asked to end terrorism eventhough the phrase itself had no widely agreed upon definition or effectivestrategies to stop it.Furthermore, social reform is not something that couldbe engineered and implemented overnight by a virtually deceased Palestiniangovernment without a state.123 Even the United States with its great militarymight, abundant economic capital, and stable socio-political establishmentcould neither stop international terrorism nor transform its social fabric athome in any immediate sense.All of this meant that the realization of asolution to the conflict was rendered precarious, less than a year after Bushannounced his roadmap.Antipathy towards the roadmap, however, was never explicit in any way [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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